Includes index

The Defense Is Ready is about the making of a passionately committed American defense lawyer who believes that everyone accused of a crime, no matter how heinous, is entitled to a vigorous defense of his rights against the overwhelming power of a frequently callous state. Leslie Abramson's journey from eager young law clerk to one of the nation's premier homicide attorneys involved some of the most difficult and notorious criminal cases of the last two decades. Among

Those she describes with a frank insider's eye are the Bob's Big Boy case, which involved the murders of employees and patrons during the robbery of a popular Los Angeles restaurant; the Chinatown trial in which defense sleuthing finally unraveled the mystery that surrounded the slaying of one police officer and the wounding of another by young Chinese gang members; and the startling acquittal she won for an immigrant Pakistani doctor accused of murdering and

Dismembering his own young son. Finally, Abramson describes the series of disturbing and thought-provoking trials in which she undertook the defense of battered wives and abused children ultimately driven to kill their tormentors. Most celebrated among these were the two death penalty murder trials in which she represented Erik Menendez, who, along with his brother, killed his parents after years of sexual and emotional abuse

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